Swiss Lake Dwellings Research Articles

Swiss Architectural Origins, Le Corbusier, and the Pātaka of Lake Horowhenua (1845)

In April, 1845, the Rev. Richard Taylor passed through the area of the North Island now marked by the town of Levin. At this time, he described Lake Horowhenua as being of singular appearance for the small storehouses built over the water on poles. As was his predilection, Taylor made a drawing of the lake huts, a version of which was belatedly included in the second edition of his most important literary contribution, Te Ika-a-Māui (1870). This image would have remained as little more than a questionable curiosity was it not for Messrs Black Bros who, in the course of exploring the lake bed for Māori artefacts in 1932, legitimised Taylor's observation with their discovery of the submerged architectural remains of an aquatic hut. Nonetheless, almost a century after Taylor's original diary entry, GL Adkin, writing for The Journal of the Polynesian Society, lamented the neglect shown toward these remarkable structures, and which he cited as just one example of the "tantalising gaps" in the recorded history of Māori custom and culture. Sadly, it is well beyond the scope of this research to properly redress the historical neglect shown toward lake pātaka. What I do wish to do is to link these structures to an event on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, Switzerland, when Dr Ferdinand Keller noticed some half-submerged piles in 1854. Upon these remains Keller made a great, if erroneous, case for primitive "pile-work habitations" in the Swiss lakes. The impact of this argument cannot be understated. It became the privileged model for architectural origins in the German and French parts of Switzerland, and by the 1890s it was a part of standard teaching texts in Swiss schools, where it was firmly inculcated into the curriculum at the time that Charles Edouard Jeanneret was a child. This in turn has led Vogt to suggest that, in Keller's "dwellings on the water," Le Corbusier found a Primitive Hut typology that underpinned all his architectural thinking, and which is made most explicit in his principled use of piloti. What makes this all the more involved is that Keller, in searching for examples to visualise the construction of the Swiss lake dwellings, turned to the Pacific (which he categorised as at a developmental stage of architectural evolution akin to early Europe). In this paper I identify the exact etching by Louis Auguste de Sainson that Keller took for direct influence. The problem, however, is that de Sainson depicted a conventional whare built on land, and Keller transposed it to the water. So we have on the one side of this paper an authentic lake whare that is all but forgotten, and a famed European lake-hut that is all but Māori, and between the two is the figure of Le Corbusier who may or may not have unknowingly based one on his major innovations on influences found in the pātaka of Lake Horowhenua.

PEAS: today's number one vegetable

The popularity of garden peas, now easily our most widely favoured green vegetable, is nothing new in the history of human food. Pea seeds were the regular food of many races of prehistoric man, wherever the wild plants grew naturally in the Middle East, Ethiopia and Mid‐Asia. The remains of such seeds have been found in many prehistoric sites, including the Swiss lake dwellings of the Bronze Age dating back some 5,000 years.

Improving the production and nutritional quality of food legumes.

Man has been using some legumes as important sources of food ever since the invention of agriculture, probably about 8000 to 10,000 years ago. For example, remains of peas, Fisum sativum, have been found in the Swiss lake dwellings of the Bronze Age (1), and the plant was cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. The broad bean, Vicia faba, probably native to northern Africa and the Near East, has been under domestication for at least 4000 years and probably longer. It was well known to the ancient Egyptians and to the Greeks. Records 5000 years old mention cultivation of the soybean, Glycine max, in eastern Asia, possibly its native habitat, but there is no record of its first domestication, which must have occurred long before.KeywordsCommon BeanBroad BeanRockefeller FoundationField BeanFood LegumeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Determination of the Age of Swiss Lake Dwellings as an Example of Dendrochronologically-Calibrated Radiocarbon Dating

Comparison of the radiocarbon content of a series of samples of dendrochronologically dated bristlecone pine wood with that from trees for which a so-called floating tree-ring chronology has been established makes it possible to determine an empirical age for this floating tree-ring series based upon the age of the wood used for comparison. For the case of the Swiss Lake Dwellers, the difference between conventional radiocarbon dates and the age values determined in this manner amounts to about 800 years. The age of the floating chronology was determined within a standard error of less than 40 years. The measurements indicate that the dwellings were constructed during the 38th century B. C.

Jade; A Comprehensive Bibliography

Nephrite is a silicate of calcium and magnesium, often containing small amounts of iron and is one of the amphibole group of minerals. It is distinguished by its structure, which is characteristically fibrous, and of such fine grain that the individual fibers are hardly visible. The fibers are variously arranged, parallel to each other, curved, twisted, fan-shaped, interlocked and felted in complicated fashion. Since the hardness is 6.5, and specific gravity close to 3, it fuses with some difficulty to a greenish glass and is not decomposed by hydrochloric acid. Nephrite is found abundantly on the west coast of South Island in New Zealand, where it occurs as boulders and sometimes as nodules and veins in serpentine and talcose rocks. Specimens appear also in New Caledonia and in some of the other Pacific Islands. Siberia has yielded very fine dark green nephrite, notably from the neighborhood of the Alibert Graphite Mine, near Batugol, Lake Baikal. Quarries in Karakash and Yarkand River valleys, Turkestan, have furnished much of the nephrite used by the Chinese. Switzerland, Alaska and British Columbia also yield pure nephrite. Jadeite is a silicate of aluminium and sodium, usually containing small quantities of iron, calcium and magnesium and is one of the pyrozene group of minerals. It has a vitreous luster, varying from translucent to opaque, and occurs very rarely in distinct crystals, but usually massive and closely compact. With a hardness of about 7 and specific gravity of approximately 3.3, it fuses readily to a clear glass and is not decomposed by hydrochloric acid until after having been fused. The chief supply of jadite, including the precious emerald green fei-ts'ui, comes from Burma, where it has been found in the several tributaries of the Irrawaddy River, and at Taumaw, Hweka and Mamon. It also occurs in Turkestan where nephrite is found, and other Asiatic localities. The most productive deposits appear to be in Belurtag, the jade mountain of the Chinese, on the upper waters of the Tishab River, near Yarkand. It is mined by Kachins and shipped to the lapidaries in Peking, Canton and Shoochow, the chief centers of the jade industry today. The finest jade carvings were made in the imperial ateliers at Peking. Objects of jadeite are common in Mexico, Central America and in the northern part of South America. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico amulets of green stone were highly vener. ated, and it is believed that jadeite was one of the stones prized under the name of chalchihuitl. Chloromelanite may be regarded as a variety of jadeite rich in iron, often containing as much as ten per cent. It is spinach-green or dark green in color and has a specific gravity of 3.4. It occurs in the Cyclops Mountains in New Guinea, where natives make hatchets and agricultural implements from it. Celts made from this mineral were found in the dolmens of France and in certain ancient Swiss lake-dwellings. Jadeite and nephrite have so strong a resemblance to each other that their true identity must be ascertained by microscopic examination and chemical analyses. Their differentiation becomes more difficult when the two substances occur in the same specimen, the nephrite having been formed from the jadeite by a gradual alteration of its chemical and physical constitution. Jade minerals are white when pure, but in nature they are more often variously colored. A partial jade spectrum is given by John Goette in Jade Lore (1937). Their range is from white to black through varying shades of green, yellow and red. Black jade nephrite, which is rare, contains chromic iron. Usually it is of dull color with whitish toned flecking. Red and brown tones in jade are due to inclusions of iron pyrites. Yellow jade, which is also quite rare, often has a light greenish tinge. The shades of green vary from

The Oldest Swiss Lake Dwellings

American AnthropologistVolume 32, Issue 2 p. 303-305 Free Access The Oldest Swiss Lake Dwellings C. Daryll Forde, C. Daryll FordeSearch for more papers by this author C. Daryll Forde, C. Daryll FordeSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1930 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1930.32.2.02a00080AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume32, Issue2April 1930Pages 303-305 RelatedInformation

Culture Sequence in the Swiss Lake Dwellings

Culture Sequence in the Swiss Lake Dwellings

The Oldest Swiss Lake-dwellings

When the first lake-dwellings were discovered in 1856, people at once began to explore every site above or below water where the presence of stakes indicated a pile-settlement. These investigations, however, were carried out with no regard for system or stratification ; had it been otherwise the problem under discussion would have been solved then. Unfortunately the collection of masses of objects was the main consideration ; digging was conducted quite haphazard, and was concentrated on those spots where finds were expected. Thus has it come about that the surface of our Swiss lake-dwellings is so riddled with pits that too often it no longer exists at all save as a memory. But when surface-digging proved barren it often happened that excavations were simply discontinued, with the result that the upper layers or those below remained intact. It was this fact which moved the Neuchatel Committee for Archaeological Research to undertake a series of systematic excavations, by means of which a limited number of sites would be uncovered layer by layer, with the least possible disturbance. After several fruitless attempts we have at last found, amongst the most important of our Stone Age sites, some which are virgin and have never been dug into ; and these have enabled us to determine the succession of the different neolithic cultures.

The Climate of Prehistoric Britain

After the latest glacial advance of the Quaternary Ice Age, the climate of north-west Europe did not simply recover to its present level, but underwent a series of fluctuations, at times becoming warmer and drier than at present, and again approaching glacial conditions. The pioneer in the investigation of these postglacial climatic changes was the Norwegian Axel Blytt, who as long ago as 1876 made out a succession of dry and wet periods, which he termed Boreal, Atlantic, sub-Boreal and sub-Atlantic. The existence of these four periods has been abundantly confirmed; they are best shown in the peat-bogs of Norway and Sweden, where they are represented by layers of tree-stools alternating with beds of peat, but they have now been connected with de Geer's geochronological time-scale derived from the banded glacial clays. It is found that the dry, mainly cool Boreal period extended from about 6500 to 5200 B.C., the moist warm Atlantic period from 5200 to 3000 B.c., the dry warm sub-Boreal from 3000 to 850 B.C., and the wet cool sub-Atlantic from 850 B.C., to about 300 A.D. Thus the Neolithic in north-west Europe falls partly in the Atlantic and partly in the sub-Boreal period; the Bronze Age entirely in the latter. The early Iron Age, on the other hand, falls mainly in the sub-Atlantic.A succession of dry and wet periods can be recognized over a wide area in northern and central Europe and again in Scotland and Ireland. The Swiss lake-dwellings are strong evidence of a dry climate during much of the Neolithic, because when they were established the levels of the lakes must have been very much lower than at present, especially if, as seems probable, the dwellings were first built not in the waters of the lakes but on peat-bogs on their Neolithic shores. In Scotland James Geikie obtained a sequence similar to Blytt's, though he stressed the changes of temperature rather than of rainfall. Geikie named his stages Lower Forestian, Lower Turbarian (i.e. Lower Peat), Upper Forestian and Upper Turbarian. The Scottish peat mosses have since been examined more closely by F. J. Lewis1, who found that the Upper Forest Bed extended over the whole mainland of Scotland almost to Cape Wrath, rising in places to nearly 3000 feet above sea level, or far above the present limit of trees. In the Highlands however it is split into two layers separated by one to three feet of peat, indicating a break in the dry conditions. It is interesting that a similar break in the dry Neolithic climate is shown by the history of the Swiss lake-dwellings. The Upper Forest layer is not found in the Shetlands.

The Origin of the Thoroughbred Horse

THE author said that he had shown Academy, January, 1891, (p. 91) that not only, as had been long observed, did the Homeric Greeks drive the horse before they rode him, but that the same was true of all ancient peoples-Egyptians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Aryans of Rig-Veda, Umbrians, Celts-and that the explanation of this was given by Herodotus (v. 9), who, in speaking of the Sigynnæ, the only tribe north of the Danube, whose name he knew, said that they had small horses, with large flat noses and very long hair, which, though not able to carry a man, were excellent under chariots: “wherefore they; used chariots.” Dio Cassius likewise says that the Britons used chariots in war, because their horses were small though active. The description of the horses of the Sigynnse tallies exactly with the abundant remains of the primitive horse of Europe, eaten if great quantities and delineated on antlers by the men of the Stone Age. He was a small animal about 10 hands high with a big head. Even after domestication he remained veryi small, as witness bits of bronze and horn found in Swiss lake dwellings, the shoes found at Silchester, and in camps on the Roman Wall, &c. Authorities are agreed that from this primitive horse has been developed the cart horses of the continent and these islands, whilst our blood horses have come from an eastern stock of slight build and smart appearance. Our problem is to ascertain the original habitat of this superior horse. He has not come from upper Asia; as the Mongolian pony is taken as the type of the coarse thickset horse from which sprang the cart horse. The Mongolian pony probably represents the Scythian horses, which continued to be of a small size down to Strabo's time, and they were derived either from he tarpan or Prezevalsky's horse. The Mongolian pony, though surefooted and enduring, is slow of pace. Neither China, Siam nor Burmah have any indigenous horse answering to the blood horse. India could never breed horses, says Marco Polo, in whose time India was supplied either with Mongolian ponies, from Yunnan or with Arabs from south Persia, Aden and other Arabian ports. These Arabs fetched enormous prices, equivalent to 200l. It has hitherto been universally held that Arabia is the original home of the blood horse. This is a baseless assumption. In the Old Testament, the Arabs are never mentioned as riding anything but camels and asses. Though the author of Job knew of the war horse, yet Job did not own 3. single horse, his equine possessions consisting of 500 she asses. Herodotus (vii. 87) enumerates the nations (including the Libyans) that supplied cavalry to Xerxes' host, but the Arabs only furnish a camel corps. Agatharchides (cited by Strabo) describes the Arabs as camel keepers.

Exhibition and Description of a Collection of Stone and other Remains from Swiss Lake Dwellings, illustrative of the Agriculture, Manufactures, &c., of the Lake Dwellers

Lord Rosehill exhibited some of the artefacts he collected on his trip to Switzerland. These artefacts were collected at the site of Stone Age lake-dwellings in the Swiss Alps. Lady Rosehill also provided a list of plant seeds collected at the sites. Professor Simpson thanked Lord Rosehill for his talk and added some further remarks on the sites from his own visit.
 
 Meeting notes for 14 March, 1870 are appended. At this meeting, Lady Alicia Ann Scott (referred to as Lady John Scott) was elected as the Society’s first Lady Associate.

On the remains of plants found beneath the Swiss lake-dwellings

On the remains of plants found beneath the Swiss lake-dwellings